


But Iron—Cold Iron—is master of them all

by Emjen_Enla



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: Cardan whump, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I literally got an AO3 account to post this, Incompetent Villains, Whump, because this is Jurdan we're talking about, faeries and cold iron do not mix, slightly toxic relationship, some badass Jude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 03:54:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15234750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emjen_Enla/pseuds/Emjen_Enla
Summary: An ill-planned but unfortunately partially successful coup plot leaves Jude and Cardan trapped in a cold iron box. It does not go well.





	But Iron—Cold Iron—is master of them all

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the Folk of the Air. Title from "Cold Iron" by Rudyard Kipling.

The instant Jude woke up on the floor of a hard metal box she realized she was in trouble.

The last she remembered she had been at a revel drinking toast after toast with the visiting nobles. There were always a lot of toasts at such things partially because Cardan liked alcohol and partially because she suspected he was clandestinely testing the limits of her tolerance for strong drink. She wasn’t sure what he planned to do with the information once he had it, so for the time being she was watching the amount she drank and tried to act unaffected even when she was.

Even before she opened her eyes she knew that this was more than just the result of too much to drink. This was something different. Something dangerous. Cardan could be vindictive and cruel when the mood struck him, but a metal box was not his flare.

She peeled her eyes open and saw the dark walls of a box much higher than it was wide. It was almost night, but some light filtered in through the close slats of a grate in the ceiling. There was just enough light for her to make out and recognize the figure standing stock still directly in the center of the box.

“Cardan?” she asked. “Where are we?”

“Oh, you’re awake,” Cardan turned towards her. “Your constitution is even weaker than I thought; I’ve been awake for hours.”

He was smiling, but it was the tense, borderline pained smile that he wore when he was nervous. That did nothing to reassure Jude. For all his general stupidity, the first thing Cardan would have done after waking up in this place would be to try to get out. If he hadn’t managed it, she’d be hard pressed to figure it out herself.

“Well, I’m awake now,” she said briskly. She couldn’t afford to appear worried, especially in front of him; she had a reputation to protect. “Do you remember what happened? At the banquet? How did we get here?”

Cardan bit his lip for an instant before his expression smoothed out. Jude noticed that his tail was free and swishing back and forth nervously. That wasn’t necessarily unusual, but there was something oddly tense about it today, like it was almost rigid. She noticed it never brushed the walls, which was strange. Over the months since she’d manipulated him onto the throne, she’d realized that most of the movements of Cardan’s tail were unconscious, so it was probably avoiding the walls without his knowledge.

“I’m only partially sure,” Cardan said. “We were toasting with the wine that Thorn and Bramble brought us. It must have been spiked because now that I think about it I don’t recall seeing either of them actually drink from their glasses, just raise them to their lips. You lost your wits remarkably fast and had to be taken away. I finished my glass which was profoundly stupid. I should have realized there was something wrong with the wine the instant you started acting strangely; your tolerance is better than that.”

Jude pointedly ignored the offhanded compliment. “And then?”

“That’s where it starts getting blurry,” Cardan admitted. “I got really dizzy; I remember because I was trying to figure out how I’d gotten that drunk so quickly. I’m pretty sure Thorn led me out of the banquet hall before I collapsed, probably because the High King just collapsing in full view of the court would lead to panic.”

“So, Bramble and Thorn,” Jude said.

“Most likely,” Cardan said crossing his arms. “You’re going to have to deal with that once we manage to escape.”

_You_ not _We._ Clearly getting kidnapped had done nothing to convince Cardan to be more open to actually doing his job, though she kept reminding herself that a Cardan who didn’t care for his position would be a lot easier to get rid of once Oak came of age than one who grew to enjoy it.

“I suppose I will,” she said, crossing her own arms. “So, what did you try to get out of this thing?”

Cardan rattled a list of things, some of which were better ideas than others.

“Has anyone come?” she asked when he’d finished.

Cardan shook his head; his smile had gone tight in a way that looked more like a grimace.

“Have you tried shouting?”

“Of course, I have,” Cardan snapped. His tail lashed to the left and the tufted end hit the wall. He flinched away and hissed.

That was went Jude realized that Cardan’s expressions didn’t just looked pained, they actually were pained. His teeth were gritted, his shoulders were tense, and his tail was nearly rigid with pain.

“Are you okay?” Jude asked. “You look like you’re in pain.”

“Right now, I’m better than you’ll be if we get left down here for any substantial period of time,” he said. “We don’t have any food or water and I can last a lot longer under those conditions than you.”

It was classic faerie avoidance tactic, meant to keep from saying something one didn’t want to when you couldn’t lie. The fact that Cardan wouldn’t answer he directly meant that he most likely wasn’t okay and didn’t want to admit it.

“I’m not going to fall for that,” she said. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“No,” Cardan shook his head. “This box is made of cold iron.”

Oh.

“That’s problematic,” Jude said slowly.

Cardan nodded. She realized he wasn’t really crossing his arms, he was a bit closer to hugging himself. He was very tense, like the cold iron was beating down at him from all sides.

“Are you going to be alright?” she asked.

Cardan didn’t reply.

~~~~

Jude spent the next hour or two working on the plan to hopefully escape so she could go make Thorn and Bramble pay for crossing them. Every once and a while she would come up with something that seemed plausible, but once she questioned Cardan a little closer she realized that they all hinged on things he’d already tried.

For his part, Cardan stood in the center of the box, hugging himself, tail quivering back and forth and answering her questions with as few words as possible. He was very pale.

“You know you could sit down,” she said after a while. “You’re making me nervous just hovering like that.”

“I am not sitting down,” Cardan said very precisely. “I would like to keep my boots between myself and the iron floor, thank you very much.”

She realized that the soles of Cardan’s boots were the probably the thickest part of his clothing and therefore provided the most insulation against the iron beneath his feet. No wonder he didn’t want to sit.

“Alright,” she said, making sure to keep her voice sharp; she and Cardan didn’t show concern for each other. “I guess I’ll survive then.”

~~~~

“I’m going to climb on your shoulders,” Jude said a while later.

Cardan looked up at her, forehead creased in what might have been indignation or pain or both. “Excuse me?”

“I’m going to climb up on your shoulders,” Jude said very slowly like she was talking to someone very stupid, “and try to reach the grate.”

Cardan looked up at the bars of light far above his head. “You’re never going to be able to reach.”

“We won’t know until we try,” Jude said. She refused to allow him to see that she had the exact same doubts. “Come on, help me up.”

Cardan edged backwards to give her space to stand, his tail curled closer into his body as he neared the wall. He held his hands out before him, fingers laced together like a step. “This is not going work,” he grumbled.

Jude stepped up into his hands and then onto his shoulders, digging the heels of her boots into his fingers and shoulders with a bit more force than strictly necessary. When she was up on Cardan’s shoulders, she balanced for a moment, her fingers digging into Cardan’s hair. Once she felt like she wasn’t going to fall over backwards, she straightened up and stretched her fingers up towards the grate.

As Cardan had predicted their combined height wasn’t enough. Jude stretched towards the grate which remained infuriatingly out of reach above her head. She swayed and almost lost her balance, but Cardan grabbed her ankles, keeping her steady.

“I told you this wouldn’t work,” Cardan grumbled. “Can you get off now?”

“Give me a minute,” she snapped.

“You can’t reach,” Cardan groused, sounding tense. “What more could you possibly gain from standing on top of my shoulders? Get off before I drop you.”

“It’s not my fault you need to lift some weights,” Jude growled, walking her fingers up the iron wall, hoping that she would somehow be able to breach the distance between her and the grate. “If I try to jump, can you catch me?”

Cardan whole body shuddered, not the sort of shudder someone might give if they were feeling anxious about something, it was the shudder of someone in a lot of pain. He didn’t reply.

“Cardan?”

Cardan inhaled sharply, Jude both felt his shoulders rise and heard the air hiss between his teeth. He swayed wildly, and Jude braced her hands against the iron wall trying to keep them upright. “Cardan!”

He didn’t reply, just tipped to one side and fell. Jude scrambled at the wall trying to find something to catch herself on but there was nothing. She and Cardan simply crashed to the floor.

She suspected Cardan had actually blacked out, but it had probably only been for a split second because he was conscious enough to try to catch himself on his elbows and knees. The attempt might have actually worked except that Jude landed right on top of him and forced him down until he was prone on the iron floor.

Cardan cried out in pain as his body slammed up against iron floor and shoved her away. He stumbled back to his feet and stood over her swaying, face pallid. He looked a lot like he was about to collapse again.

“Cardan,” Jude said. “Are you alright?”

He just stared at her, panting. Jude wanted to tell him to sit down but given the way he had reacted to even a second’s touch of bare skin to floor, that probably wasn’t a good idea.

“Cardan?” she asked.

“Can we not do that again?” He gasped.

“We don’t have to do that again,” Jude assured him. “Are you okay?”

Cardan didn’t immediately reply, simply hugged his arms tightly around himself for a few minutes, then he said, “Can you just please come up with a way to get us out of here as soon as possible?” He didn’t sound like he was whining

~~~~

The ultimate problem, as Jude figured after hours of thinking, was not that the box was all that hard to get out of. In fact, she suspected the grate would be easy to pry open if she could just reach it. The problem was that she couldn’t reach the grate and had no tools to help her. Eventually she admitted to herself that there was nothing to do but sit and wait for rescue.

The problem was that she had no idea how long Cardan could hold out.

They hadn’t spoken since their ill-fated shoulder climbing incident. Cardan still stood in the center of the room, his arms wrapped tightly around himself. He could have been exactly as he’d been when she’d awoken but he was now shaking and swaying visibly. His tail no longer thrashed back and forth and simply curled loosely around one of his legs like it was using that support to keep from touching the ground. His face was icy pale. Jude wanted to ask how he was, but she knew how important his pride was to him; they were alike in that way. If she asked Cardan how he was when he obviously wasn’t okay, she’d be putting him in a position where his faerie heritage wouldn’t allow him to save face. Of course, she could mock him for it, but she didn’t want to. There was no joy in mocking someone for something so obviously serious. Not forcing him to admit how awful he felt was a minor kindness, but it was one she hoped he would be decent enough to extend to her if she ever needed it.

“It’s been hours,” she said instead. “The Court of Shadows have no doubt realized we’re missing and are looking for us. They should find us soon, or Thorn and Bramble will come back.”

Cardan took an unsteady breath. “So that’s what we’re doing? Waiting to be rescued?”

“Unless you can fly and just haven’t mentioned it in the entire time we’ve known each other,” Jude snapped. “Yeah, we’re waiting to be rescued.”

Cardan sucked in air between his teeth, shoulders rising dramatically. “Great,” he said and turned away from her in a motion that was probably meant to be angry but didn’t quite manage it. Jude rolled her eyes just for the sense of normalcy.

Then Cardan swayed wildly, he reached for the wall then stopped himself at the last second and swayed the other way. Jude realized he was about to collapse again.

She was on her feet almost before she had time to realize what was happening. She lunged across the room and grabbed Cardan before he could sink to the ground.

Cardan was breathing heavily, and she could feel him trembling. For a minute or two neither of them moved.

“I want to get out of here,” Cardan moaned.

“I know,” Jude said surprising even herself with the gentleness in her voice. She grasped his arms and lifted them until they were hanging over his shoulders. She pulled him a little closer, so she was supporting more of his weight. “Just lean on me; I’ll help you stay up.” He didn’t thank her for catching him, but they never thanked each other for anything so she wasn’t exactly surprised.

“What hurts?” she asked. She’d told herself she was going to let him keep his pride, but she hoped that perhaps he’d say something that would give her an idea of how long he had.

She almost expected him not to answer, but then he moved forward a little and rested his forehead half on her shoulder and half on his arm. “Everything hurts,” he moaned. “My head is going to explode.”

Without thinking, she reached up with one hand and rubbed the back of his head, ruffling his hair. “It’s going to be fine,” she told him. “We’re going to get rescued; trust me.”

Cardan let out a little snot/laugh. “Yeah, it ended really well for me the last time I trusted you.”

There was absolutely nothing Jude could say to that.

~~~~

The sun began to rise again. They were hours from having been gone a full day. Someone had to have noticed that they were gone by now. Someone had to be they were looking.

Jude’s stomach growled with hunger and her tongue was sticky with thirst. It didn’t help that she was now supporting most of Cardan’s weight. He hadn’t said anything or even really moved in hours. She was pretty sure he was still conscious, if only because she wasn’t positive she’d be able to hold up his entire dead weight.

She was still running over possible ways to get them out when she heard voices from up above. “Hey!” she yelled, not caring who was up there. Even if whoever was up there meant them harm, if they got them out it would still be a plus. “We’re down here!”

She heard whoever it was call to someone else, then a voice called down, “Jude Duarte?” It was the Roach.

Jude tightened her grip around Cardan, he barely twitched or seemed to hear. “Get us out of here!” she called.

“The High King with you?” the Roach asked.

“Of course,” she replied. “I mean it, get us out!”

“Alright, no need to be so impatient,” she could tell the moment that he touched the grate because he yowled in pain. “This is cold iron!”

“I know,” Jude replied. “This whole box is. That’s why you need to hurry. Cardan’s been down here for hours.”

There was a pause that was just long enough for Jude to start to get even more worried than she already was. She rubbed a hand up and down Cardan’s back and he shuddered.

“Alright,” it was not the Roach who spoke, it was the Ghost. “We’re going to get you two out. Will Cardan be alright if we send a rope down?”

“He’s going to have to be,” Jude said. “Just move fast.”

The Court of Shadows pried the grate open, hissing and swearing as the cold iron burned their hands. After a couple minutes a robe with a loop tied in the end fell down into the box.

“Cardan,” Jude nudged Cardan, trying to coax him into greater awareness. “Cardan, it's time to get out.”

“Jude,” he groaned.

“I know, but it's almost over,” she told him, dimly registering that she was actually comforting him and not just mercilessly mocking him. “You just need to work with me for a couple minutes, so we can lift you out. Okay?”

Cardan nodded against her shoulder and tried to straighten up as she worked him over to the rope. It took some doing to get one of his feet into the loop of rope, but eventually they managed it. Jude pulled on the rope until the faeries up above gave her slack and then wrapped the rope around Cardan’s waist a couple times because she didn’t trust his ability to hang on by himself. Then she stepped back and called up, “Alright, you can lift now.”

The Court of Shadows hauled Cardan up and out of the box. Jude leaned back against the wall that was so harmless to her but so dangerous to Cardan and heaved a sigh.

She waited several minutes without any sign of the rope and began to worry. Had the Court of Shadows decided this was the optimal way to get rid of the Queen? The cold iron might not be dangerous to her, but she could still die down here given enough time.

She was just about to call up to them when the rope dropped down again. She grabbed it and stuck her foot into the loop. “Ready!” she called.

The rope hauled her up. It went a bit slower than it had with Cardan and when she reached the lip of the box she realized it was because only the Roach and the Ghost were pulling. The Bomb was kneeling in the knee-length grass a handful of yards distant.

Jude grabbed the lip of the box and hauled herself the rest of the way up. She didn’t fail to notice the way that the Ghost shuddered when she grabbed the cold iron, like he couldn’t imagine anyone touching it so flippantly.

“Where’s Cardan?” she asked.

“Right here,” the Bomb called.

Jude clambered to her feet, tripping awkwardly over the edge of her dress as she did and headed over. Cardan was lying in the grass curled into an uncomfortable-looking ball. He still looked awful, but she could see his back and sides heaving in time with his ragged breaths, so it didn’t seem like he was going to die anytime soon.

“Apologies the amount of time it took us to find you,” the Roach said from just behind her. “It took us a while to notice you were gone. We knew you’d gone back to your chambers and we figured that Cardan had just decided to call it a night once you were no longer around to force him to do his job.”

“Once we noticed that wasn’t the case, we had to figure out what had happened to you,” the Ghost continued. “We ended up locking down the Hollow Hall. We came up with a ridiculous but true excuse that would fool anyone who didn’t know what was going on and we looked for who squirmed. Thorn and Bramble tried to escape the Hollow Hall and we arrested them and... convinced...them to tell us what had happened to you. Then we came right here.”

“They didn’t mention the cold iron, though,” the Bomb said. Jude noticed she was rubbing Cardan’s back with unusual tenderness and tried not to be annoyed.

“Where are Thorn and Bramble now?” Jude asked.

“Still imprisoned,” the Roach replied.

“Good,” Jude said. “Because I want to have a conversation with them.”

~~~~

The first thing Jude did upon returning to the Hollow Hall was head to the dungeons. The Roach went with her and by the time they reached the cells where Thorn and Bramble were being held he’d filled her in on everything that they had already told the Court of Shadows.

The two faeries looked surprised to see her and that made Jude feel a little less inferior even though she was standing before them in them sweat-stained and dirty. “You do realize that locking your High King in a cold iron box does count as an attempt on his life, don’t you?” she asked.

Bramble’s face stretched into a strange expression, but she didn’t say anything, which meant that she couldn’t think of something that wasn’t a lie.

“Why did you do it?” Jude asked. “You obviously weren’t expecting to get caught or you would have worked out a decent exit plan. What exactly were you expecting to happen?”

“We will not talk to a _human,”_ Bramble said. “The High King should deal with this himself. Or he is too busy getting drunk?”

Jude was surprised by how angry Bramble’s dig at Cardan made her. The woman was a faerie, she probably knew exactly what a day in an iron box had done to Cardan and she still had the nerve to mock him.

Jude forced those thoughts aside. It would not do to let them see that they had gotten to her. “Well, that’s too bad,” she said. “The High King isn’t the one here. I am. Regardless of whether or not you like it, I will be the one who decides when and how you die, so if you want this to be easy, you’d best start talking.”

Thorn smiled slyly then said, “Cardan is a horrible High King.”

The fact that he could say it was more proof that was what he believed than any proof Cardan’s abilities as a ruler, but it just so happened that was an accurate description anyway. Unwilling to admit that to an enemy, Jude just raised an eyebrow.

“We cannot survive with Cardan leading us,” Thorn rattled on. No faerie would have been so terrified by the single threat she had delivered that they would just spill their guts. Thorn wanted the chance to give his evil villain monologue. Jude held back a snort of laughter.

“We decided to get Cardan out of the way so Balekin can take the throne,” Bramble picked up the tale with a happy smirk on her face. Thorn nodded in agreement. They looked like they thought they were geniuses.

“Okay,” Jude said. “And how did you expect that to happen when it’s already been established that no one wants Balekin to be High King?”

There was a long pause. The looks of surprise on their faces were almost comical. It appeared they really hadn’t thought about what they’d do once she and Cardan were out of the picture.

“There’s that little boy…” Bramble said very slowly, like she was trying to prove that she wasn’t stupid. “Madoc and Oriana’s son. How was he able to do that? There’s no royal blood in Madoc’s family.”

“Do you know where he is?” Jude pressed refusing to allow her panic to show in her voice. If someone had figured out where Oak was, everything would be ruined.

Thorn’s face tightened. “No one has seen the boy since that night,” he said, consternation visible on his face. “I do not know where he could have gone off too, and neither does anyone else.”

Jude held her shoulders rigid, refusing to allow them to sink in relief, Oak was safe. “So, let me get this straight, you don’t like Cardan being on the throne, so you decided to dispose of him so Balekin could be crowned, but you didn’t think about how to get Balekin crowned beyond possibly finding Oak?” She cursed herself for using Oak’s name, she didn’t think these faeries had realized she was Oak’s sister, and she didn’t want to give them any leverage.

Fortunately, they were too busy exploding in rage at her description of their plan. “How dare you talk down to us, filthy human!” Thorn howled. “We are better planners than you could ever dream of being!”

Jude thought of the elaborate plan she’d used to trick Cardan into becoming High King and held back a sigh. These people were idiots, it was embarrassing that she and Cardan had been trapped by them. “I doubt that,” she said, then raised her voice. “Roach?”

The Roach came in. “Yes?” he asked. She was thankful he didn’t use her code name; she had no desire to see how that would go over with these prisoners.

“Have these two executed for treason at sunset,” she said in her most powerful voice as she turned to leave. “Don’t publicize what happened, but don’t try to hide it either. We want to seem transparent, but not too transparent.”

The Roach nodded taking the orders without a change of expression. The Court of Shadows was used to death.

It appeared that Thorn and Bramble were not, or at least they were not used to their own deaths. They both began talking at once, their voices clambering and pouring over each other. “You promised mercy if we talked!” Thorn wailed.

It was funny how he’d gone from preening and showing off to a what he saw as an insignificant human to begging her for his life in a matter of minutes. Jude allowed herself to take some pleasure it. There were a lot of downsides to the position she’d put herself in by placing Cardan on the throne, but she would never get sick of having the power to make faeries fear her.

She stopped walking but didn’t turn around, she simply looked back over her shoulder. “I never said that,” she said, “and even if I had I’m human; I can lie.”

And she walked out, ignoring Thorn and Bramble’s shouts of protest behind her.

~~~~

The Bomb was waiting outside of the dungeon. She straightened when she saw Jude. “Did you get them to talk, Queen?”

“Didn’t even need to try,” Jude said. “They wanted to gloat about their evil scheme and just told me everything.”

“Was it a good plan?”

Jude snorted. “Not in the slightest. The only well-planned thing in it was that cold iron box. Even the drugging only worked because Cardan and I didn’t make the leap of logic to realize that drugs were the most likely explanation for how we both got so drunk so quickly,” she gritted her teeth at her own stupidity. “I won’t make that mistake again, and hopefully Cardan’s smart enough to do the same, though I suppose to the cold iron might prove a useful reinforcement technique for him.”

The Bomb looked a little uncomfortable and Jude realized belatedly that a faerie was unlikely to be as flippant about the idea of being trapped in a cold iron box than a human.

“Where is Cardan, anyway?” Jude pushed on before things could get any more awkward.

“His chambers,” the Bomb said. “The Ghost is standing guard outside; he should be fine.”

“Good,” Jude turned her feet in that direction. She only took a couple strides before she thought of something else. “Oh, and, Bomb?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you track down that bottle of wine Thorn and Bramble drugged Cardan and I with and tell me what drug they laced it with?”

The Bomb gave her an especially faerie-like grin. “More poisoning yourself, Queen?”

“Just tell me what it is,” Jude said and headed for Cardan’s chambers.

~~~~

The Ghost was slumped comfortably in a chair outside Cardan’s door when she arrived. He grinned up at her. “Nothing to worry about, Queen. Just a couple courtiers attempting to check up on their High King. They know he was gone for a day, but they don’t know why yet. I sent them away.”

“Thank you,” Jude stopped in front of the door and knocked. There was no response, so she rapped harder. “Cardan? You in there?” There was still no response, she turned to the Ghost. “What’s he doing in there?”

The Ghost shrugged. “No idea. He’s been quiet, though. Maybe he’s drinking already,” he licked his lips. “Wouldn’t blame him. I’d want a drink if I’d gone through that.”

Jude tried to push away her rising worry. They’d stayed in the field by the iron box until Cardan could sit up and ride behind someone on a horse, and by the time they’d gotten back to the Hollow Hall he’d been able to walk under his own power. She’d thought he was getting better, but what if he’d taken a turn for the worst again?

There wasn’t time to hate herself to worrying about him. She pounded on the door. “Cardan!” No response. She grabbed the knob. “Cardan, I’m coming in.” She threw a glance at the Ghost, “Stay here,” and let herself in.

The room was quiet and dark, the shades drawn against the sun. Jude felt her way over to one of the lamps on the wall and lit it. In its dim light she could make out the immaculate room; obviously the day that the High King had been missing had given the servants enough to time to thoroughly clean up his chambers. She made her way across the room to the open door to Cardan’s bedchambers. It was just as clean. It took her a little longer to notice the motionless form of the faerie boy curled up on the bed.

“Cardan!” Jude was across the room before she remembered deciding to move. She set the lamp on the bedside table and bent over him. He was curled into a ball, arms wrapped tightly around his middle. His tail was twined around his body like it was giving him a hug. He was pressing his forehead against his knees, something she was honestly shocked he was flexible enough to do, she couldn’t see his face.

“Cardan?” she reached out and took his shoulder. “Cardan, are you alright? Do I need to get someone?”

He shifted slightly. “I’m okay,” he said, his voice rough. “I just hurt. It’s not as bad as it was, though.”

Jude sat down on the edge of the bed before she thought about whether she should and then she didn’t want to stand up because it would make her uncertainty obvious. “You’re sure you don’t want me to get someone?”

“No,” Cardan still didn’t lift his head. “I’m not sure there’s anything anyone could do. I think I just need to wait it out.”

And he was too proud to ask for help. Apparently, he was the sort of person who whined incessantly when they stubbed their toe but would take real pain without a sound. She liked him better for that and immediately cursed herself for it.

“Have you eaten?” she asked rather than continuing with that line conversation. Cardan shook his head and she rose. “Then I’m going to get some food for us. We both need to eat.”

She crossed back to the outside door and told the Ghost to send a servant for food. “Something simple,” she told him. “And no alcohol.” She didn’t trust Cardan not to drink himself to death under normal circumstances, and she was sure it would be worse if he came up with the bright idea of trying to use wine to dull his pain.

Cardan still hadn’t moved when she returned to his bedchambers. She crossed to his large and well-stocked closet and hunted around in it until she found a pair of pajamas. This was more difficult than she had expected because the servants seemed to have actually organized Cardan’s wardrobe something she knew she’d be hearing him complain about once he was feeling better.

“Here,” she said tossing the pajamas at him. “Put these on, it will be more comfortable.”

Cardan lay still for a minute then slowly uncurled and reached for the clothes. Jude turned on her heel and went outside while he changed. Cardan didn’t seem to notice, or if he did he didn’t comment, which was more unnerving than Jude wanted to admit, normally he would have mocked her for it.

She was still standing outside his bedchambers when a servant came with a platter. There were the fixings for sandwiches and a pitcher of water that smelled like it had been faintly infused with fruit. Jude wasn’t sure if the water was meant to be the Ghost’s idea of a joke after the whole “no alcohol” thing but decided not to ask. She took the tray, thanked the servant and crossed back to Cardan’s bedchambers. She balanced the tray on her hip and rapped on the door. “Cardan, are you decent?”

“As much as I ever am,” he called back sounding a little more like himself, which was a relief.

Jude pushed the door open and came back in. Cardan was sitting on the edge of his bed, pressing in on his temples with the heels of his hands. “Still have a headache?” she asked setting the tray down on the bedside table.

“Yes,” Cardan said. “I don’t mean to imply that it’s not better, it really is, it’s just…” he sighed, swung his legs back onto the bed and leaned back so he was lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling, “It’s just not good either.”

Jude didn’t know what to say; she had no experience with actually expressing concern for Cardan. Instead she said, “Well, are you going to make a sandwich or are you going to make me make one for you?”

“I’m quite comfortable now. You can do the work for me, as usual,” Cardan said in his normal, arrogant tone which would perhaps have been a bit more convincing if he wasn’t now pressing his palms against his closed eyelids. His tail lay limply across the bed like it didn’t have the energy to move. She wondered why he hadn’t hidden it away when he’d changed, and for the first time wondered just how uncomfortable and annoying it was to hide away part of your anatomy because it would just give away your real emotions.

She sighed, normally she would have just left and told him to make his own food, but perhaps she was feeling a bit sentimental after everything they’d been through, so she reached for a roll. “Remind me again of all the things you don’t eat, your glorious majesty?”

Cardan snorted and rattled off the list of foods he didn’t like. He was quite literally the pickiest person Jude had ever met and didn’t like trying new things; she could only imagine what would happen if he ever had to eat human food.

Smiling softly to herself, she made a sandwich for him. When it was finished she briefly considered throwing it at him, but just set it in the center of his chest instead. He dropped his hands from his face and glared at her. “You could have just given it to me,” he groused, but Jude just smiled. He grabbed the sandwich and sat up, perhaps a little woozily, but he started in on the sandwich, so she figured he was probably fine.

Jude made a sandwich of her own and sat on the edge of the bed again to eat it. A part of her, the part that had been trained by long years of being Cardan’s mortal enemy, screamed furiously at her, asking why she dared to be this friendly with him after everything. She knew that part was probably the wisest. After all, there once might have been a chance for reconciliation with Cardan, but she had destroyed it when she’d betrayed him and made him High King, from now on they would always be plotting against each other. She could not trust Cardan, could not allow herself to become even a little comfortable around him because as soon as the year he’d vowed to her was up, he would find a way to get his revenge.

Still, the events of the last day seemed to have formed at least a temporary truce between them. Both of them had laid off the hostilities. It took two to fight and neither of them seemed to have much interest in fighting right now. Cardan would probably wait until he was feeling better to return to their old ways and Jude would wait until then to go back as well.

“I take it the fact that you are here now means that you’ve already had a discussion with our kidnappers?” Cardan asked with his mouth full. She wrinkled her nose at him. His face remained stoic though she suspected he was messing with her.

“Yes,” she said. “Unfortunately, our ‘kidnappers’ are complete imbeciles. I hope that embarrasses you as much as it embarrasses me.”

“Oh, yes, immensely,” Cardan said in a tone of voice that would have been difficult to interpret if he hadn’t been faerie and unable to lie. He popped the last of the sandwich into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “That was very good. Make me another?”

“I’m eating,” Jude said. “Make it yourself.”

“But how am I to know what you put on it?” he asked with a smile. “I wasn’t looking.”

So apparently, they were just calling a truce from actively trying to thwart each other, not Cardan making her life difficult. “The fact that you phrased that as a question proves that you know exactly what’s on it,” Jude said. “I’m not helping you when we both know you can do it yourself.”

Cardan rolled his eyes but slid to the edge of the bed and made himself a sandwich exactly the way Jude had made the first one with no pause to think about what he’d been tasting. Jude smiled and took another bite of her own sandwich.

They sat in comfortable silence eating until the sandwich fixings had been reduced to just the things that neither of them would eat. After the food, Cardan had gotten some of his color back, but he was starting to look like he was just going to keel over and pass out and Jude could tell from the way he was holding himself that he was still hurting.

“Maybe you should lie down and try to sleep for a couple hours,” she said. “Thorn and Bramble are being executed at dusk, but that’s going to be a rather small thing so neither of us necessarily need to be there. Still, we’ve been missing for a whole day so we’re going to need to make an appearance tonight. It would probably help if you didn’t look like death warmed over when we do that.”

Cardan nodded and listed to the side until he simply collapsed down onto the mattress. He pulled his legs up onto the bed and his eyes sunk closed. Jude threw a couple blankets over him, gathered up the remnants of their meal and headed for the door.

“Jude?” Cardan asked. She turned back to see him squinting tiredly at her. “Where are you going?”

“To bed,” she said. Then before Cardan could ask for something ridiculous like for her to sit with him until he fell asleep, she continued, “It’s late. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Then she walked out of the room. Cardan didn’t call after her.

\--

**Author's Note:**

> And now that I've posted what might be the only Folk of the Air fanfic on the internet that doesn't end with Cardan and Jude violently making out, I sit back and see if anyone else is interested in Cardan whump...


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